LIVING (2022) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Oliver Hermanus
Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp,
Hubert Burton, Adrian Rawlins, Oliver Chris
Bill Nighy has been stealing movies and scenes in movies for years now, and in "Living" he gets the kind of part most older actors would sell a chunk of their soul for: a starring role in a movie with a good script about a man who's dying. Nighy's character, Mr. Williams, is a career civil servant working in a government office whose primary function seems to be moving documents around and making sure nothing gets done. When he learns he has terminal cancer, he starts to think about what he might do with the time he has left, and it's not what he's been doing for the last 40 years. Some of this plays like straight-laced Monty Python - the men with their bowler hats and business suits and umbrellas on their way to their bureaucratic jobs - and you think, shouldn't John Cleese be in there somewhere? But it's an affecting character study, and it all hinges on Nighy, playing a man who's self-effacing to the point of being invisible, a chronic conformist facing one last chance to color outside the lines (and maybe do something useful) before it's too late. Without giving too much away, let's just say he doesn't waste the chance, and neither does the actor playing him.
